NS 8811 in Gauge 1

[kevsmiththai]

The Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST as NS 8811

 

Forgive the lengthy pre-amble but before going into the construction of my latest 'lets get it finished in lockdown' projects I thought I'd give you some background on the 'whys and whats'

 

Many years ago, long before I went fully into Z gauge, I used to tour the U.K with two big gauge 1 exhibition layouts. One was based on a typical British coal mine and the other on a Bavarian branch line. As the show team got older and we found ourselves living further apart geographically it became apparent that lugging 8 metre long, heavy, layouts about was getting too much so they were both retired and sold.

 

Mardy Colliery principally ran small British industrial tank locomotives and here the saga of the Austerity tanks begins. The design was a development of a standard Hunslet 550050 class modified and simplified to meet the requirements of the war department commission for a locomotive that could be built in large numbers relatively easily for use in the U.K and Europe after liberation to replace the thousands of locomotives lost in conflict.

 

No less than 485 were eventually built by Hunslet and other manufacturers and so rugged and powerful was the design that construction carried on until 1964!

 

The Wemyss Private railway in Scotland had theirs handsomely finished in crimson lake. I really must get around to rewashing the original transparency and rescanning

 

 

I started with the 550050. Construction was nickel silver superstructure on a GFS steel chassis with wheel castings by Locosteam and power was a Beuhler motor mounted vertically in the firebox. All axles were sprung. It had the characteristic deep buffer beams and sloping back to the bunker. It was finished in an industrial livery and named 'Topham'

 

Seen shunting the coal screens on Mardy Colliery

 

 

More soon

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

next was 68011. A standard model that went into British Railways stock after the war and went into preservation on the Kent and East Sussex railway. Construction was the same as 'Topham' and it was a very powerful, smooth runner. It became the loco of choice to bring the empties up the incline into the colliery yard on the layout as the four wheelers usually needed a banking engine to get up.

 

 

About to tackle the steepest part of the incline

 

 

Lurking in the wheel casting drawer were two more sets of driving wheel castings. Jack wanted an Austerity that had the unique cut down cab of the examples that ran on the Lambton, Hetton and Joicey Colliery system in the North East coalfields and so I started two more locos with the fourth being again a standard example. This time the superstructure was brass but in all other respects the design was as before. I got the Lambton cab one finished after a major fight with the shape of the roof but the last one fell off the radar and was dispatched to the loft in 2000.

 

 

 

 

The Lambton one

 

 

Every now and then it was taken out and dusted off but my heart really wasn't in it so it has languished for quite a while. Now I am working from home due to the lockdown and there no show deadlines for the Z layouts it seemed the obvious next one to finish after the Thai railways C56 2-6-0.

 

The first thing to decide was what to finish it as. Another British one didn't appeal to me but then I remembered the 27 that were sold to the Netherlands Railways after the war. Substantially unaltered, no less than three of these have survived into preservation to join the 67 other examples that have survived. That's right, there are 70 still surviving today and it has been a mainstay of preserved lines in the U.K for decades being powerful, easy to maintain and easy to get hold of.

 

I've decided to do NS 8811. It won't be an exact copy as the original has been modified in preservation a couple of times but should be fairly close and finished in WD Green with the characteristic continental headlamps.

 

 

 

more soon

 

kev

[kevsmiththai]

Laying all the bits out it was apparent it wasn't far off. It had donated one wheelset to the Lambton one due to a quartering issue and the side rods needed tweaking and I couldn't find the firebox backhead anywhere so will have to make another.

 

 

The white plastic bits are the patterns to cut the siderods out on my pantograph engraver

 

A start was made by making the torque arm that holds the motor upright but allows the back axle to move up and down on the springs and also the inside valve gear. 68011 had full working inside valve gear but on 8811 it will be static. It is just to fill the big empty void between the frames. The chassis was then run up and down with the gear wheel disengaged to check for tight spots. One crankpin hole needed easing slightly and it was o.k

 

 

original, and very rare, footage of Mardy Colliery in action in 1992. How i wish we had High Def camcorders back in those days!

 

 

 

cheers

 

Kev

[miyakoji]

Very nice Kev.  Sorry, but what is NS?  Not Norfolk Southern apparently 😁

[kevsmiththai]

'Nederlandse Spoorwegen' It is the Dutch State Railway company which dates back to the late 1930s.

 

Kev

[Martijn Meerts]

Looking good. I do like these no-nonsense functional locomotives 🙂

 

[kevsmiththai]

part 1 of the video

 

 

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

So I'm well into the fiddly bits now.

 

Nickel Silver balance weights have been added to the wheels and the brake hanger studs fitted. Mechanical lubricator fitted to footplate. Front sandbox lids on

 

 

Note how the centre weight on is off centre to balance the Connecting rods and valve links.

 

The wagon behind is one of two LMS 20t Coke hopper made from some etchings by Peter Prydderch. I have had these since 1994! It is sat there because I am using it to test some new etch primer to see how good it is before risking it on the Austerity. So far so good.

 

Boiler/ saddle tank assembly just need some more cleaning up. The safety valves and whistle sit in a recess just in front of the cab and will be fitted after the tank is painted

 

 

Firebox backhead with its characteristic double throttle handle, reversing stand and cab roof

 

 

Now the injectors are little pigs to make and are very prominent on the real thing especially when they have polished all the pipes up

 

 

Not seen on the photo are the handbrake column inside the cab and the associated brake beam below on the chassis. Cleaning up the tarnishing on the inside of the cab and the bunker is going to be a challenge and I need to do it next I think.

 

I've ordered some brake blocks from Tenmille and some screw couplings which will be with me next week so I can machine the brake cross beams and pull rods and then I can start thinking about painting the wheelsets and chassist. This is a majot milestone because I can stop worrying about the chassis starting to rust again

 

More soon

 

Kev

[Martijn Meerts]

Looking good. No idea how you can make so much progress in such a short amount of time really 😄

[kevsmiththai]

Because there is nothing else to do!

 

TVs rubbish, No Model railway shows, No galas at preserved railways, No need to spend two or three nights away working at Crewe or Carlisle or Motherwell so I'm free to just get stuck in. round about this time of year is when I start to get busy photographing and videoing the real thing but all the 'interesting' trains have been cancelled due to the pandemic. So It is proving a very fruitful time to get things finished. I took the opportunity to finish lettering the 4 freight cars that go with the C56 whilst I had the white paint markers out and weahtered them and I'll post a pic soon.

 

However, I have hit a problem. I have used up all my brass rod that would have been used for the brake pull rods so I am going to have to source some a.s.a.p as I cant paint the chassis until i have trial fitted them and cut them to length.

 

More soon

 

Kev

[Martijn Meerts]

I'm still working most days, guess that's the disadvantage of being able to work from home. On the other, I have no reason to complain, at least I don't have the 3 to 3.5 hours of commute every day.

 

Still amazed at how smooth everything looks on the pictures. Whenever I take pictures of the stuff I'm working on, it looks pretty rough. Of course, the scale is different, and I haven't worked with brass that much. Looking forward to seeing it all painted 🙂

 

[kevsmiththai]

So yesterday I ended up doing some real work rather office stuff at home.

 

As i was the only one around passed out on 68s I ended up crawling around underneath 68 001 fitting a plug to the airbrake dump valve. Its been a while since I've been seen wielding a spanner that big!

 

 

Back in the miniature world The chassis is looking a lot better now the brakegear and the other bits of the inside valvegear are on.

 

The brake rigging come off in one piece leaving the brakehangers and blocks behind. These swing forward so I can get the wheelsets out for painting

 

 

The valve gear will be painted red and gives a nice 'busy' look between the frames. Pickups will be nickel silver springy strip bearing on the back of the insulated wheels. These are soldered to small pieces of copper clad strip bonded to the inside of the chassis with the power from them taken along nickel silver wire disguised as a bit of pipework to one contact on the motor. The other contact will go straight to the metal of the gearbox to collect power from the uninsulated side

 

 

Getting closer. The suspension coil springs will only be fitted after the chassis is painted

 

 

There are two triangular brackets each side that go from the footplate to the chassis still to be done. The sandpipes will go on last of all. I've got the bits to make the working screw couplings. The sprung buffers are made and will  go on after the loco is painted. I think this weekend will be all cleaning up ready for priming. Somewhere in the loft I've got a bag full of 1/30th fire irons, shovels, oil cans and teapots to give the cab some life.

 

Although the U.K is still on lockdown the supermarkets are open but with closely enforced social distancing rules when in the store. So when I was in the other day getting the essentials in (Beer) there was something nagging away at the back of my mind. 'What did I want ?' I tried to remember when it came to me in a flash. White Vinegar, an essential part of the clean up process. before painting the superstructure will be soaked for about twenty minutes to etch the surface to help the new etch primer stick even better. I do this outside the workshop as it stinks!

 

more soon

 

Kev

Edited May 1, 2020 by kevsmiththai
spelling

[kevsmiththai]

So the chassis and superstrucure are primed using different paint.

 

The chassis, even though it has a fair few brass details in done in red oxide primer as are the wheelsets. I prefer this on ferrous parts. The chassi was given a decent soak in white spirit first to get any lingering paste flux residue off. Then a soak in white vinegar to etch it . a quick swill in soapy water to get rid off the vinegar and then dried off with a Bosch heat gun held not too close

 

 

Note that the motor/gearbox is still mounted on the axle and masked off around the top of the motor where the brushes are and the gearbox itself.

 

The weather has not been bad today so I opened the workshop door wide and the side window to get some air going throughh as today was going to be stinky

 

The final details had been added to the cab/footplate including the rear lamp irons that I had completely forgotten about! Now I mentioned that cleaning the inside of the cab and bunker was going to be a pain so again I soaked it in white spirit, rinsed off and dried. Then blitzed it with an air grit blaster, not a model one, a full sie one ( I got it from either Adi or Lidl when they had them in) it is not subtle and I would not reccomend it in any scale smaller than 0

 

 

I do this outside with the model in one of those plastic stacking storage boxes with lids that supemarkets do used as a makeshift grit blasting cabinet. You can see how the inside of the coal bunker is looking a lot cleaner

 

The boiler/saddle tank needed a lot of time in the white spirit as the residual flux was quite heavy inside from the initial heavy soldering construction. It was quite interesting how much sediement was left when I rinsed it out

 

 

Dunked in the vinegar and inverted every few minutes. Both this and the main body will get sprayed in Etch primer

 

What with White Spirit, White vinegar and acrylic primer not only did the workshop stink but so did the whole back garden!

 

Some miscelaneous details have already gone through the process. The cab roof, brake rigging, coupling rods, backhead and reversing stand. The backhead has had all the bits I want to stay bare metal coated in Maskol (liquid masking paint) which will be peeled off after the black has gone on. The etch primer is not this light I used flash on the camera

 

 

More soon

 

Kev

[Martijn Meerts]

I did read about the vinegar thing several times. Definitely easier than roughing it up using a glass fiber brush 😉 

 

Haven't tried it myself yet. Some people say to add some salt, some say to leave parts in overnight, others say just 20-30 minutes, some others again warm up the vinegar etc.. I felt the glass fiber brush was a bit safer.

 

 

[cteno4]

Vinegar is just dilute acetic acid and not all that nasty to metal on short exposures. Basically just cleans off the surface well.

 

jeff

[kevsmiththai]

The fibre glass pencil is still THE best way of getting the excess solder and deep tarnishing off. If I had made the model out of Nickel Silver I wouldn't be going to all this trouble as paint adheres really well to it. It is only brass really that needs this treatment and there is nothing worse than bits chipping off a few months later .

 

Just had one of those moments, I picked up some British Racing Green paint the other day to do the main body colour and though I'd do a test shot to see what it would look like. turned out it was metallic!

 

back to the shop

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

Cab, footplate and bolier in etch primer. The primer is very good but i only realised afterwards that I'd paid nearly £12 for an aerosol.

 

chassis and brake gear and wheelsets in black. Inside of chassis and valvegear painted signal red

 

 

The wheelsets were popped back into the lathe to polish the paint off the treads. The crankpins were also polished up by putting them into the chuck of the battery drill and running against some Scotchbrite. The rods were painted Burgundy

 

 

So after the 'Metallic' cock-up I plumped for Brooklands Green.

 

 

In this pic I've started to paint the cab interior in a sand colour. 

 

Test assembled. 

 

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

Once the boiler assembly has been bolted to the cab and footplate the backhead and reversing stand can be bolted in. Martijn sent me some info on Dutch steam loco drivers and firemen which sent me scurrying into the loft because I knew I had something like'

 

 

Safety valves and whistle are in. The lost wax screw couplings and buffer heads are in.

 

Now...The NS Lamps are like nothing I've ever seen before. I only had some vague pictures to wok on but when I built the Badische Staatsbahn  0-4-0+ 0-4-0 Mallet in gauge 1 many years ago I cast the headlamps in resin and still had loads left. So I got as couple out and did  some mods. Not a very flattering pic but you get the idea

 

Kev

[kevsmiththai]

Just for interest here is the said  Mallet,  prior to painting

 

 

It had two Buehler motors, one on each chassis and could pull the side out of a house whilst going around 1.2 metre curves in Gauge 1.

 

Weathered and running on the Gottersee layout

 

 

The rest of the video about the Austerity might be a while coming. I've shot loads of stuff but not in any sequence so I've got my work cut out putting the time frame in the right order.

 

more soon

 

Kev

 

 

[Martijn Meerts]

Looking good, I really like the interior detail as well.

 

As for the primer, the aerosol cans generally are better primers than you'll ever get for airbrushes, but you do tend to waste quite a bit of primer. I've used the Tamiya aerosol primers on my Tamiya RC Tiger II tank, and even though it's relatively small, I still went through several cans. Also, for the smaller stuff, I do like the control and accuracy you get with an airbrush.

[kevsmiththai]

I agree Martijn

Aerosols are a pretty blunt tool. I'm sure my workbench is a good 5mm higher with all the layers of paint it has got on it!

 

I've had some pretty fancy Etch primers to use with the various airbrushes I have got (Cherry paints, Phoenix etc) but they are the very devil to clean up if you are a bit slow. I ruined a Pasche internal mix airbrush once  because I got distracted and couldn't get it apart afterwards, Glued solid!

 

Kev

[cteno4]

They do sell spray heads for rattle cans that have more limited spray and finer drops for small stuff that I want to try. I think even testors was selling a set. I’ve seen them at the wargaming shops and been meaning to pick some up but the shipping at those places starts high usually. I need to get a friend who orders paints there all the time to get me some on her order.

 

deft varnish use to have these really nice spray heads and they came with 3 spray levels, but they no longer sell that.

 

jeff

[kevsmiththai]

Finished

 

 

Lettering and numbering done. Fancy lamps done and lenses put in. Windows glazed

 

 

The lettering was real 'Old school'. Dry print white lettering from years ago applied to Microscale clear decal sheet. Varnished and then applied as a normal waterslide decal.Reason? If you try applying dry print letters directly to the model and you get it postioned wrong you're stuck and also the paint is not fully cured and does not like pressure being applied yet.

 

 

So. What next?

More soon

 

Kev

[Martijn Meerts]

Turned out really nice. The lights really are fancy, definitely not something you'd expect on a smaller loco like this 😄

 

Next up, a Big Boy? 😉

 

[kevsmiththai]

Well, sort of, maybe

 

From one end of the spectrum to the other!

 

 

The Nickel Plate Road 'Berkshire' 2-8-4 was the epitome of 'Superpower' steam on the USA railroads and is another one of my stalled projects.

 

 

The last installment of the build video (Part 9) I posted on my youtube channel in October 2011 so like the gauge 1 locos it has been sat for ages. thread coming soon in worldwide models

 

last video

 

 

Kev